Brewer's: Balmy

I am going to the balmy ”—i.e. to “Balmy sleep;” one of Dick Swiveller's pet phrases. (Dickens: Old Curiosity Shop.)

Balmy-stick
(To put on the). In prison slang means to feign insanity; and the “Balmy Ward” is the prison ward in which the insane, real or feigned, are confined.
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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